New development: Enhancing regional innovation capabilities through formal public service communities of practice

IMPACT

The circular economy (CE) involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products for as long as possible—moving away from the traditional linear economy. The Circular Economy Innovation Community (CEIC) project, presented in this article, developed a novel programme to create regional inter-organizational innovation communities of practice for public service organizations across a region. Participants were introduced to contemporary tools and techniques to enable their organizations to reduce their carbon footprints, reduce costs and enhance service levels. The authors describe the way that the CEIC project has been able to create sustainable innovation communities of ‘change-makers’—enhancing regional innovation capabilities and supporting the transition to a CE.

ABSTRACT

Public services have recently experienced a ‘perfect storm’: dealing with challenges including the task demands of Covid-19, increased financial pressures derived from the pandemic and its impact on future revenue flows, and obligations to meet carbon reduction targets. In the UK they have also been impacted by Brexit. However, limited formal programmes are available to public service organizations (PSOs) that enhance the capabilities required to develop solutions to their challenges. This article presents a novel programme for PSOs that supports them in co-designing regional new service solutions that embed circular economy principles.

KEYWORDS:

• Circular economy
• Circular Economy Innovation Community (CEIC) programme
• communities of practice
• design thinking
• experiential learning
• innovation
• public services